Edmark Sight Words for Students with Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

For students of kindergarten to 3rd grade.

Lesson Plan Using flickr
Edmark Sight Words
Class:
The target students are high school self-contained students with moderate intellectual disabilities (MoID). (This is a sight-word readiness activity. It can also be modified for students in first and second grade.)
Goal of this unit:
The goal of this lesson is for the students to improve the number of Edmark sight words known.
Suggested Materials:
&#8226; Windows XP-based computer and printer
&#8226; Macintosh computer capable of running OS X (minimum of Jaguar; 10.3.x)
&#8226; iLife Suite, including iMovie software
&#8226; Inspiration software for Macintosh OS X or Windows XP
&#8226; Write:Outloud software
&#8226; AlphaSmart 3000 with Co:Writer software applet
&#8226; digital cameras, memory sticks, blank CDs, blank DVDs
&#8226; video camcorder
&#8226; outdated magazines from media center or brought from home
&#8226; outdated newspapers from media center, brought from home or left over from newspaper delivery job
&#8226; poster board
&#8226; glue
&#8226; index cards
&#8226; Edmark sight word worksheets
&#8226; dry erase board & markers
&#8226; Internet access
&#8226; Individual flickrTM accounts
Instructional Objectives:
1.) The students will increase the number of Edmark sight words known by 25% over their initial individual baseline score.
2.) The students will be able to find and take digital pictures of 10 examples of Edmark sight words while in the community over the course of three community skills trips.
3.) The students will be able to find and take digital pictures of 10 examples of Edmark sight words while on the school campus over the course of two class periods.
4.) Given old magazines and newspapers, each student will find 25 representations (pictures or the words themselves) of Edmark words.
5.) Given a flickrTM account and Internet access, students will find visual representations of 25 Edmark words as tagged on flickrTM.
Introduction:
Each student will have a baseline score taken with the Edmark sight words and phrases titled &#8220;Signs Around You,&#8221; &#8220;Fast Food/Restaurant Words,&#8221; &#8220;Grocery Words,&#8221; and &#8220;Job/Work Words.&#8221; There are 400 Edmark words and phrases. Once all students have baselines scores, the class activities can begin. Please note that this is a unit, and will be worked on over the course of a semester and can be extended to a full year if necessary.
Activities:
1.) Awareness/Introductory Activity: To develop awareness for the activity, we will hold a scavenger hunt. After a short discussion about why these words are important, we will break into two teams with the teacher and para-pro as the team leaders. Appoint a captain to take a clipboard and a pre-printed sheet with the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words with to our community skills destination of Super Wal-Mart. Each team is to place a check mark by each of the words found, starting as soon as we board the community skills bus. We will walk through Wal-Mart looking for the words for 30-45 minutes. Team that finds the most Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words will earn 50 extra Bonus Bucks for purchasing items from the school store.
2.) Sponge Activity: During times when there are only five to 10 minutes left in a period or before we are about to begin an activity, play &#8220;Wheel of Fortune&#8221; on the dry erase board using the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words. Student wins the round by being the last person to guess a letter correctly of the target word and also be able to read it. Each round won earns the student 10 Bonus Bucks for purchasing items from the school store.
3.) During Peer Leaders time, assign two students to each peer leader. Have the students go on a scavenger hunt around the school, looking for words or pictures of words of the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words. Use the digital cameras to &#8220;capture&#8221; a word. Team finding the largest number of Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words earns 25 Bonus Bucks for purchasing items from the school store.
4.) Class Activity: Gather old magazines and newspapers and have available to the class. Instruct the class to find as many pictures or instances of the words themselves of the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words. Each student will work by him or herself of with one other student to cut out the pictures or words and create a collage of the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words. Assistance will be available from the classroom teacher and para-pro.
5.) Community Skills Activity: After a couple days work with the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words, arrange another scavenger hunt during community skills time. This time, choose Target or a grocery store (Publix or Kroger) and have students use the digital cameras to &#8220;capture&#8221; their target words. Have students work in teams of two or three. The team with the most words &#8220;captured&#8221; earns 25 Bonus Bucks.
6.) Video Activity: Take digital pictures students &#8220;captured&#8221; and collect them to be burned to a CD. Using Write:Outloud, I would import these same digital pictures that the students have &#8220;captured&#8221; into a Write:Outloud document. I would use a background color to complement the pictures and type in the words to match the pictures. Each student could then have his or her own file, with pictures, that they would be able to read along with the words they had found. This activity could be done as a group (with a group file of Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words) and also individually, with the words each student was still having difficulty with.
7.) Video Activity: Using the digital pictures gathered previously as a beginning point, work with the class in a group project, utilizing the Peer Leaders or members of the B.E.S.T. club (Bringing Extraordinary Students Together, a club of students who are in self-contained special education classes and general education students who get together once a month after school for social activities) to assist each student to find video of the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words to &#8220;capture&#8221; using a camcorder. Each student can then take his or her pictures along with the video clips and make a movie using iMovie software.
8.) Video/Software Group Activity: The classroom teacher will direct this activity. Students and teacher will use the software program Inspiration to begin to categorize the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words into appropriate sections. Each of the digital pictures of the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words can be uploaded to Inspiration, along with a short piece of audio that can say the word. A note can be attached with the Edmark word typed in that can be hidden from view until needed. Also, after the work is shown, a separate piece of audio can be recorded that allows the student to work on the words independently.
9.) Writing Activity: The students will experiment with writing a couple of short sentences in conjunction with the classroom teacher and para-professional. Each student will choose one of the index cards that they are able to read and verbally state the sentence with teacher and para-pro support. Using the dry erase board, students will attempt to write the sentence on the dry erase board, using his or her color of choice. After each student has made his or her attempt, each student having difficulty will then attempt the same exercise utilizing the AlphaSmart dedicated word processor with Co:Writer software. After the exercise is completed, the teacher will upload the text from the AlphaSmart 3000 to Microsoft Word to be printed.
10.) Review Activity: Use the index cards with the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words written on them to review and reinforce the words individually or in small groups (two or three maximum). This activity can be done once a day for about 10 minutes. Utilize two sets of words, one with just the Edmark Fast Food/Restaurant Words on the index cards, and another with the words and digital pictures of the word immediately below the word on the card. The set with the pictures can be used as a scaffold, until it can be determined that a student is familiar with the word. Once this occurs, the index cards can be switched out and the card without the picture can replace it.
11.) Each student will create an account at the flickrTM web site (with assistance, if needed). After successful registration, each student will log on to flickrTM (by him or herself if able, or with a peer leader if assistane is needed) and search for the 25 photos or pictures that represent Edmark sight words. Students will enter the Edmark sight word list of their choice and find photos with those words as tags. The students will then download these photos or pictures to a new folder on the computer desktop.
12.) Each student will take the digital pictures that were captured during activity number three and upload those pictures to the flickrTM web site.
Assessment:
Students will be individually assessed after a period of four weeks to evaluate progress to this point. All activities should be evaluated for appropriateness and effectiveness. Discussion will be held with my para-pro to address her assessment of this series of lessons. Further questions to be addressed:
&#8226; Will students be capable to take video and digital pictures for use in the various activities? Have I allowed enough time for these activities?
&#8226; Are video and computer-related activities functioning as motivators? If not, do they need to be changed?
&#8226; Are the Peer Leaders and B.E.S.T. club members acting appropriately? Are they dominating the activities or are they allowing my students to participate in an age-appropriate manner? Are my students getting an opportunity to take pictures and video?
&#8226; Are the scaffolds in place effective? Have they been left in too long?
&#8226; When working in groups, are both groups being instructed in a similar fashion? (teacher and para-pro on the same page?)
Gwinnett County Academic Knowledge and Skills:
Grade:
1
Subject:
Language Arts
Topic:
D - Reading (Word Work/Vocabulary/Phonics)
AKS:
increase vocabulary to reflect a growing range of interests and knowledge (GPS) (1LA_D2005-23)
Grade:
1
Subject:
Language Arts
Topic:
D - Reading (Word Work/Vocabulary/Phonics)
AKS:
identify 100 common words on sight in isolation and in text (GPS) (1LA_D2005-24)
Grade:
2
Subject:
Language Arts
Topic:
C - Reading (Word Work/Vocabulary/Phonics)
AKS:
increase vocabulary to reflect a growing range of interests and knowledge (GPS) (2LA_C2005-25)
Grade:
2
Subject:
Language Arts
Topic:
C - Reading (Word Work/Vocabulary/Phonics)
AKS:
identify 200 common words on sight (GPS) (2LA_C2005-26)
Grade:
3
Subject:
Language Arts
Topic:
C - Reading (Word Work/Vocabulary/Phonics)
AKS:
identify 300 common words on sight (GPS) (3LA_C2005-33)
Georgia Performance Standards&#8212;1st grade
VOCABULARY
ELA1R5 The student acquires and uses grade-level words to communicate
effectively. The student
a. Reads and listens to a variety of texts and uses new words in oral and written
language.
b. Recognizes grade-level words with multiple meanings.
c. Identifies words that are opposites (antonyms) or have similar meanings
(synonyms).
Georgia Performance Standards&#8212;2ndt grade
VOCABULARY
ELA2R3 The student acquires and uses grade-level words to communicate
effectively. The student
a. Reads a variety of texts and uses new words in oral and written language.
b. Recognizes grade appropriate words with multiple meanings.
c. Recognizes and applies the appropriate usage of homophones, homographs,
antonyms, and synonyms.
d. Determines the meaning of unknown words on the basis of context.